Arts & Ideas

An Organization on the Lookout for Patriotic Incorrectness

By EMILY EAKIN

Published: November 24, 2001

The Rev. Jesse Jackson made the list for remarking to an audience at Harvard Law School that America should "build bridges and relationships, not simply bombs and walls." Joel Beinin, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Stanford University, earned a place on it for his opinion that "If Osama bin Laden is confirmed to be behind the attacks, the United States should bring him before an international tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity." And Wasima Alikhan of the Islamic Academy of Las Vegas was there simply for saying "Ignorance breeds hate."

All three were included on a list of 117 anti-American statements heard on college campuses that was compiled by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative nonprofit group devoted to curbing liberal tendencies in academia. The list, part of a report that was posted on the group's Web site (www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv.pdf) last week, accuses several dozen scholars, students and even a university president of what they call unpatriotic behavior after Sept. 11.

Calling professors "the weak link in America's response to the attack," the report excoriates faculty members for invoking "tolerance and diversity as antidotes to evil" and pointing "accusatory fingers, not at the terrorists, but at America itself."

Reports from advocacy groups are issued all the time. What has gotten this one, titled "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It," more attention than usual is that one of the council's founding members is Lynne V. Cheney, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney.

A recent speech by Mrs. Cheney calling for colleges to offer more courses on American history is prominently excerpted on the report's title page, and she is identified on the council's Web site as "chairman emeritus." But Margita Thompson, a spokeswoman in her office, said Mrs. Cheney was no longer involved with the council, which was created in 1995. She added that Mrs. Cheney "has seen" the report — although has not read it.

Mrs. Cheney did provide a statement, however, that Ms. Thompson read. The council "has been supportive of the need to teach American history, a cause I think is important," the statement said. "Faculty members have the right to express their opinions freely," it continued, and groups like the council "have a right to dispute those opinions when they disagree."

The report's authors declare they are acting to protect free speech. "It is urgent that students and professors who support the war effort not be intimidated," they write.

But the council is facing mounting criticism from scholars who say that singling out individuals — for remarks taken out of context — is misleading and offensive. Todd Gitlin, a professor of communications at New York University, called the report "a record-breaking event in the annals of shoddy scholarship," adding, "it's a hodgepodge of erratically gathered quotations, few of which are declarations of heartfelt opposition to American foreign policy."

Mr. Gitlin a longtime leftist who said he has draped an American flag across the balcony of his Manhattan apartment and published an essay denouncing anti-American sentiment abroad, was surprised to learn he was on the list. His disloyal act? Telling a journalist who asked him to describe the mood on his campus that "there is a lot of skepticism about the administration's policy of going to war."

Other scholars went further, comparing the report's list of names to McCarthy-era blacklisting. "It has a little of the whiff of McCarthyism," said Hugh Gusterson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is on the list for a comment he made at a campus peace rally. "Imagine the real suffering and grief of people in other countries," the report quotes him as saying. "The best way to begin a war on terrorism might be to look in the mirror."

Culled from student newspapers, Web sites and the media, the list includes chants recited by students at peace rallies and poster slogans like "Recycle plastic, not violence," as well as comments made by scholars in public debates.

To the report's authors, such statements are proof that an oppressive anti-American ideology has taken over on campuses. "We're criticizing the dominant campus orthodoxy that so often finds that America and Western civilization are the source of the world's ills," said Anne D. Neal, vice president of the council and a co-author of the report. "Looking at these representative comments, it appears they have stifled to a great extent opposing views."

The cure for academe's anti-American bias, Ms. Neal and her co-author write, is what the council has been advocating all along: more courses on American history and Western civilization. Ms. Neal said that the council would send copies of the report to 3,000 college and university trustees.

Scholars protest that the council is taking advantage of a national crisis to further its academic agenda. "Their aim is to enforce a particular party line on American colleges and universities," said Eric Foner, a professor of American history at Columbia University whose name appears in the report. "Now they're seizing upon this particular moment and the feeling that they're in the driver's seat to suppress the expression of alternative points of view."

Mr. Gusterson said that neither his remark nor three others attributed to scholars at M.I.T. could be considered typical of opinion at the school. "Three of the four quotes they used come from a peace rally on campus," he said. "But there were at least six other panels, and a majority of people who spoke at those panels didn't criticize American foreign policy." He added, "One of my colleagues has called for a resumption of government-sponsored assassination."

Mr. Foner cited a recent poll conducted by the Institute of Politics at Harvard and mentioned in the report. It found firm support for the war on college campuses. "If our aim is to indoctrinate students with unpatriotic beliefs," he said, "we're obviously doing a very poor job of it."